Amazon’s Telemed Solution Launching Nationwide

Amazon is expanding its telehealth service, Amazon Care, nationwide for all employees, and will make it available to other employers later this year, CNBC reported on Wednesday (March 17).

“Amazon Benefits has been the enterprise customer that we’ve been serving to date. Now, looking at other enterprises, understanding their needs, we think a lot of the needs are similar,” said Kristen Helton, director of Amazon Care, per the news outlet.

The telemed service was introduced in 2019 as a pilot in Washington state and provided free virtual urgent care and fee-based home visits for tests and vaccinations. Amazon Care has since evolved to offer primary care.

“We have developed the ability to treat chronic conditions … you can see the same provider, have a care team, so that that group of clinicians really gets to know you and I would say, we’re also learning on the clinical side, we really need to give clinicians the tools to provide excellent care,” Helton said, per CNBC.

Virtual care for its employees and other companies will launch nationwide this year, but the in-person services will at first be available only in Washington state and Washington, D.C., where Amazon’s second headquarters are based.

At the start of 2021, Amazon announced that its healthcare incubator partnership with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan — Haven — was winding down after three years.

In November 2020, Amazon rolled out a separate storefront offering two-day prescription delivery for Prime members. Six years ago, the company launched a pharmaceutical unit with PillPack. Earlier this year, Amazon Pharmacy was launched. 

The consumerization of payments could be a benefit to healthcare companies. In a PYMNTS interview with Karen Webster, John Talaga, executive vice president and general manager of healthcare at Flywire, said healthcare firms are finding new ways to collect from patents owing money. on what patients owe — and closing revenue and cash flow gaps.